Zhirinovsky is often viewed as "a showman of Russian politics, blending populist and nationalist rhetoric, anti-Western invective and a brash, confrontational style".[5] According to Reuters, "Although nominally part of the Russian opposition, he is widely seen as a servant of Kremlin policy, used to float radical opinions to test public reaction."[6]

Zhirinovsky was born in Almaty, the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, modern-day Kazakhstan. His father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein (or Wolf Andreyevich Eidelshtein), was a Polish Jew, and his mother, Alexandra Pavlovna (née Makarova), was of Russian background.[7][8][9][10] His paternal grandfather was a wealthy industrialist from Kostopil,[11] who owned the largest timber factory in the region and was head of the Jewish community.[12] Four of Zhirinovsky's relatives had been killed during the Holocaust. Zhirinovsky's parents split while he was still an infant. Zhirinovsky's father, Wolf Eidelshtein, immigrated to Israel in 1949 (together with his new wife Bella and his brother), where he worked as an agronomist in Tel Aviv, until he died in a bus accident in 1983. Zhirinovsky did not find out about his father's life in Israel until many years later.[11][13] Zhirinovsky himself is an Eastern Orthodox Christian.[14]

In July 1964, Zhirinovsky moved from Almaty to Moscow, where he began his studies in the Department of Turkish Studies, Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University (MSU), from which he graduated in 1969. Zhirinovsky then went into military service in Tbilisi during the early 1970s. He would later get a law degree and work at various posts in state committees and unions. He was awarded a PhD in philosophy by MSU in 1998. Although he participated in some reformist groups, Zhirinovsky was largely inconsequential in Soviet political developments during the 1980s. While he contemplated a role in politics, a nomination attempt for a seat as a People's Deputy in 1989 was quickly abandoned.[15]

Zhirinovsky's first political breakthrough came in June 1991 when he came third in Russia's first presidential election, gathering more than six million votes or 7.81%. Afterwards, the LDPR garnered a reputation as an ineffective vehicle for opposition against the government, and one that lacked either credibility or authenticity,[citation needed] particularly given Zhirinovsky's vocal support for the Soviet coup attempt of 1991. This view was further encouraged by rumors, denied by Zhirinovsky,[2] that he was an agent of the KGB and that the LDPR was a farcical creation meant to either discredit or distract earnest opposition to the government. Such impressions would last even as the Soviet Union was dissolved and the Russian Communist Party itself took an opposition role. In 1992 Zhirinovsky made contact with Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader at that time of France's Front National (FN). Eduard Limonov of the National-Bolshevik Party introduced the men to each other and the FN later “provided logistical support [to the LDPR], including computers and fax machines”. Zhirinovsky suggested establishing the International Centre of Right-wing Parties in Moscow and invited Le Pen to Moscow. [19]

The Liberal-Democratic Party remained an important force in Russian politics. At the height of its fortunes, the LDPR gathered 23% of the vote in the 1993 Duma elections and achieved a broad representation throughout the country – the LDPR being the top vote-getter in 64 out of 87 regions. This fact encouraged Zhirinovsky to once again vie for the presidential office, this time against incumbent Boris Yeltsin. The fact that Yeltsin's candidacy seemed seriously challenged by Russian nationalist groups and a rejuvenated Communist Party alarmed many outside observers, particularly in the Western world, who expressed concern that such developments posed a serious threat to the survival of Russian democracy, already in a very fragile state. Zhirinovsky became a focal point of harsh criticism and seemed the living embodiment of authoritarianism and militarism in modern Russia. While some observers inclined to consider his controversial statements as stark efforts to drum up nationalist support, not viewable as anything more serious than electoral fodder meant for domestic consumption, there was great consternation at the fact that in February 1996, months before a presidential election, Zhirinovsky placed second in opinion polls, behind Communist Gennady Zyuganov and ahead of Boris Yeltsin. In the end, however, Zhirinovsky placed fifth with a 5.7% share in the first round of voting. Since then, the party's fortunes have stabilized somewhat, with the 2003 election seeing a LDPR vote share of 11.7%. In 2004, Zhirinovsky declined to even be nominated by the party, leaving that role to Oleg Malyshkin, who received 2% support from voters.

For his own part, Zhirinovsky has done a great deal to foster a reputation as a loud and boisterous populist who speaks on behalf of the Russian nation and people, even when the things he says are precisely what many people, at home or abroad, do not want to hear. Zhirinovsky infamously promised voters in 1991 that if he were elected, free vodka would be distributed to all. Similarly, he once remarked, during a political rally inside a Moscow department store, that if he were made president, underwear would be freely available.[20] Zhirinovsky has on several occasions become involved in altercations with other politicians and debate opponents. As a candidate, he also took part in the 2000 and 2008 presidential elections, promising a "police state",[17] and to institute summary executions. A BBC documentary from 1995 showed Zhirinovsky telling the crowd at a campaign rally: "Help us, and you'll never have to vote again! I'm not saying, "Vote for us and maybe in 20 years' time somebody will do something". No, these will be the last elections! The last ones!".[21] While some commentators call Zhirinovsky a fascist, or a neo-fascist,[22][23][24] some others dismiss him as a mere "clown"[25][26][27] and as the Kremlin's willing political tool to neutralize the right-wing voter potential – and, for a time being, also as a radical "bogeyman" for the West.[17]

Zhirinovsky has expressed admiration for the 1996 United States presidential election contender Pat Buchanan, referring positively to a comment in which Buchanan labeled the United States Congress "Israeli-occupied territory" and said that both countries were "under occupation" and that "to survive, we could set aside places on U.S. and Russian territories to deport this small but troublesome tribe." Buchanan strongly rejected this endorsement, saying he would provide safe haven to persecuted minorities if Zhirinovsky were ever elected Russia's president, eliciting a harsh response by Zhirinovsky: "You soiled your pants as soon as you got my congratulations. Who are you afraid of: Zionists?"[28] Zhirinovsky repeatedly denied his father's Jewishness until he published Ivan Close Your Soul in July 2001, describing how his father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, changed his surname from Eidelshtein to Zhirinovsky. He rhetorically asked, "Why should I reject Russian blood, Russian culture, Russian land, and fall in love with the Jewish people only because of that single drop of blood that my father left in my mother's body?"[7] Another frequently cited quote from Zhirinovsky is "My mother was Russian and my father was a lawyer". Zhirinovksy later disowned the statement, after researching his father's life in Israel (where, after leaving Zhrinovsky's mother, he had immigrated in 1949 with a new wife, and worked as an agronomist in Tel Aviv). Discussing the statement, Zhirinovsky says: "Journalists mocked me: for saying I was the son of a lawyer. And I am really the son of an agronomist." Discussing his father, Zhirinovsky says with tears in his eyes: "All my life I was looking for him. I believed that he was alive. I believed that someday he would find me... But there is a silver lining. I tried to imitate him... And I was able to achieve a certain position in life, even without the support of my father."[11]

Zhirinovsky has Israeli relatives, including his uncle and cousin, who he met and befriended for the first time only after discovering more about his family's story in Israel. He says that he is concerned particularly about the economic situation for the more than one million Russians living in Israel, and that "Russia will never allow any kind of violence against Israel".[11]

Besides expressing his concern for Turks and Caucasians displacing the Russian population from their native territory,[29] Zhirinovsky also advocated for all Chinese and Japanese to be deported from the Russian Far East.[30] During his 1992 visit to the United States, Zhirinovsky called on television "for the preservation of the white race" and warned that the white Americans were in danger of turning their country over to black and Hispanic people.[25]

Zhirinovsky is well known for his boasts pertaining to other countries, having expressed a desire to reunite countries of the ex-Soviet "near abroad" with Russia to within the Russia's borders of 1900 (including Finland and Poland). He has advocated forcibly retaking Alaska from the United States (which would then become "a great place to put the Ukrainians"), turning Kazakhstan into "Russia's back yard", and provoking wars between the clans and the nations of the former Soviet Union and occupying what will remain of it when the wars are over.[31] Zhirinovsky, who encourages separatism within the Russian minority in the Baltic countries,[17] endorsed the forcible re-occupation of these countries and said nuclear waste should be dumped there.[31][32]

Russia’s southern neighbor Georgia has been another frequent target of Zhirinovsky’s rhetoric. After Aslan Abashidze was ousted from power in 2004 as leader of Ajara, an autonomous Georgian region, Zhirinovsky worried that similar revolutions would occur in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.[36] Highly critical of Georgia’s pro-Western line,[37] he is an energetic supporter of the Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia; in a high-profile incident in August 2004, he departed on a campaign to promote a tourist season in Abkhazia aboard a cruise ship which was briefly intercepted by a Georgian coast guard vessel.[38] After war broke out between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Zhirinovsky argued in favor of Russian recognition of Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence. "We should have taken the whole territory of Georgia under control," he complained, and "arrested all Georgian officers and taken them here, like to Guantanamo, arrested Saakashvili and handed him over for trial by a military tribunal and gone to the border with Turkey."[39] In 2009, he called the decision to hold NATOmilitary exercises in Georgia during Soviet Victory Day celebrations in Moscow a "total revision of the history of the Great Patriotic War" and suggested that Russia should respond by conducting large-scale joint military drills with Cuba and Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.[40]

Zhirinovsky has been expelled from Bulgaria for insulting its president and was barred from entry to Germany.[41] In 2005, Kazakhstan declared Zhirinovsky persona non grata on the territory of his historical homeland, due to the politician's controversial speech about the change of the Russia-Kazakhstan border, in which he questioned the Kazakhs' place in history.[42]

In 2006, Zhirinovsky became persona non grata also in Ukraine, following his statements regarding the January 2006 Russia-Ukraine gas dispute (this ban was revoked in 2007). In reaction to Condoleezza Rice's criticism of Russian foreign policy during the dispute, Zhirinovsky stated that "Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers [and] needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied."[43] At the film premiere of the film Taras Bulba in 2009 he stated: “Everyone who sees the film will understand that Russians and Ukrainians are one people – and that the enemy is from the West".[44] In February 2010 Zhirinovsky claimed that Eastern Ukraine would become part of Russia “in five years" claiming that "the population is largely Russian” and called President-elect of UkraineViktor Yanukovych “basically Russian” (Yanukovych's father was an ethnic Polish-Belarusian, and his mother Russian)

On the November 2006 death by poisoning of Russian defectorAlexander Litvinenko in London, Zhirinovsky said: "Any traitor must be eliminated using any methods. If you have joined the special services to work, then you should work, but to betray, to run away abroad, to give up the secrets you learned while working – all of this looks bad."[45][46]Sergei Abeltsev, Zhirinovsky's former bodyguard and State Duma member from the LDPR, added: "The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning to all the traitors that in Russia the treason is not to be forgiven. I would recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his crime accomplice Litvinenko."[47] In the 2007 election, political patronage from Zhirinovsky enabled Litvinenko murder suspect Andrei Lugovoi to win election to the Russian parliament and thus the formal parliamentary immunity.[27] He also accused Great Britain (according to him, "the most barbaric country on the planet") of fomenting the World War I, the October Revolution, World War II, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[48]

Writing about Marine Le Pen he said that she could outdo her father because "Instead of saying that Islam is terrorism, she simply insists that France is a secular nation that will not stand for hundreds of thousands of Muslims practicing their religious traditions. With this argument, Marine has cleverly defended the French people's right to a secular nation." In that vein he said that she has the "chance to represent the French majority."[49]

In 2013, when asked about former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said, "Yulia Tymoshenko, I'm sorry, is a woman. I don't like them, as it's easier to persuade a woman. [...] Women are more compliant, and it's dangerous."[50]

Zhirinovsky also has a history of igniting personal violence in political contexts. In his notorious debate with Boris Nemtsov in 1995 a "juice fight" broke out.[51] In 2003, Zhirinovsky engaged in a fistfight after a television debate with Mikhail Delyagin.[52] In 2005, Zhirinovsky ignited a brawl in the parliament by spitting at a Rodina party legislator, Andrei Saveliyev.[53] In 2008, he showed himself shooting a rifle at the targets representing his political rivals.[17] During the 2008 televised presidential debate, he threatened Nikolai Gotsa, the representative of Democratic Party of Russia candidate Andrei Bogdanov with violence, saying he's going to "smash his head" and ordering his bodyguard to "shoot that bastard over there in the corridor". Gotsa sued Zhirinovsky in civil court for 1 million rubles (approximately US$38,000) in damages and eventually received a judgment of 30,000 rubles (approximately US$1,150).[54] In April 2014 Zhirinovsky made strong verbal threats against a pregnant journalist during a press conference in the Duma, including ordering his aide to rape the journalist, who had asked Zhirinovsky about possible sanctions against Ukraine amidst the military tensions between the two countries. The ethics committee of the Duma will investigate the incident.[55]

To eradicate bird flu, he proposed arming all of Russia's population and ordering them and the troops to shoot down the migrant birds returning to Russia from wintering.[56] He has also threatened to remove restrictions on arms sales to Iran and proposed to sell the disputed Kurile Islands to Japan for 50 billion USD.[41]

On 4 April 2014, in the wake of the 2014 Crimean crisis, the franchises of the fast-food restaurant McDonald's, were unable to continue because they had been cut off by their Ukrainian franchisor. Zhirinovsky suggested that McDonald's "should be evicted from Russia" for the affront.[59]

At a press conference in April, when asked whether Russians should reciprocate the Ukrainian sex strike,[60] he replied that all Ukrainian women were "nymphomaniacs" like the journalist who had asked the question, Stella Dubovitskaya.[61] He then ordered two of his aides to "violently rape" the pregnant journalist for Rossiya Segodnya, who had to be briefly hospitalised for shock.[62] He later apologised with "I spoke a bit rudely when I replied to a young woman".[61]

On 10 August 2014, Zhirinovsky threatened Poland and Baltic states with carpet bombing, doom and wiping out: "What will remain of the Baltics? Nothing will remain of them. NATO airplanes are stationed there. There's an anti-missile defense system. In Poland -- the Baltics -- they are on the whole doomed. They'll be wiped out. There will be nothing left. Let them re-think this, these leaders of these little dwarf states. How they are leaving themselves vulnerable. Nothing threatens America, it's far away. But Eastern Europe countries will place themselves under the threat of total annihilation. Only they themselves will be to blame. Because we cannot allow missiles and planes to be aimed at Russia from their territories. We have to destroy them half an hour before they launch. And then we have to do carpet bombing so that not a single launch pad remains or even one plane. So -- no Baltics, no Poland. Let NATO immediately ask for negotiations with our Foreign Ministry. Then we'll stop. Otherwise well have to teach them the lessons of May 1945."[65]

On 23 August 2014, he voiced the opinion that Russia ought to abolish political parties in favour of an autocratic system in which the leader would be chosen by the "five to six thousand wisest people" in the country. He also proposed returning to the Imperial flag and anthem. Putin rejected this proposal.[66][67][68]

In May 2015 he stated that former President of Georgia, and then governor of Odessa, Ukraine Mikheil Saakashvili, should be killed. "We will shoot all of your governors, starting with Saakashvili, then they'll be afraid. And there will be a different situation in Europe and Ukraine. [...] Let's aim at Berlin, Brussels, London, and Washington." He then said Ukrainian political prisoner Nadiya Savchenko should be shot and hung in Belgrade.[69]